[Solace]

correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't seem to remember anything in the rules that says it is not possible for two different teams to be made up of the same people. if a team wants to pay the registration fee twice and recieve two kits of parts, then I think (emphasis on think) that they are, or at least should be, able to enter two robots. for all intents and purposes, 60 and 254 have aligned to form one team. since they are the same team, all the sponsors of one count as all the sponsors of the other. the only thing different about this new team is that they have decided to pay double the registration fee in order to enter two robots instead of one.

The argument that the alignment allows the concentration of too many resources is not quite logical. after a certain point, more money does not get you anything. for example, if a team has a $30k a year budget, there is pretty much nothing that is out of their price range. if they merged with a really big team, and as a result of that now have $500k to work with, they haven't really gained anything robot wise - they can still only put $3500 into the robot. all that extra money and resources goes into travel and food and marching bands and stuff like that.

Everyone is saying that these two teams have cut corners and decreased their workloads by corroborating. has anyone taken into account the sheer size of the problems involved in coordinating two groups of people in the building of a single integrated robot? Our team's subgroups have enough of a hard time coordinating amongst themselves to get things to fit right, i can't imagine how difficult it would be to coordinate with a team in another state!

As a last request, i would ask that we PLEASE refrain from bringing up the subject of student built vs. engineer built. there is no evidence either way for that argument, and so it is foolish to make that accusation. that topic has been beaten into the ground many many many times, and is not what is being discussed here.